I see infinity lying at my fingertipsWhen the moon rises and the stars quipIn their speechless tongue,Measured in nanometers and wrungFrom the union of basic simplicity,The language of our complicityIn mysteries billions of timesBeyond our scale and sublimeBefore our minds ever existed:We are small, yet we persistedIn walking out of ourselvesInto foreign gravities, to delveDeeper into the words stars shineInto our eyes and trace their linesBack to the beginning, so that one dayWe may see a foreign sunrise and say"It's beautiful" in the companyOf others from another place, and finallyKnow why everything came to be.I don't understand the words reaching me,But trusting the possibilities of their meaningI continue in observing the sky and freeingMy fellows from the surly bonds of Earth;For their meaning I'll give all I'm worth.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of EarthAnd danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirthof sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred thingsYou have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swungHigh in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flungMy eager craft through footless halls of air....Up, up the long, delirious, burning blueI’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy graceWhere never lark nor even eagle flew—And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trodThe high untrespassed sanctity of space,Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.